Big announcement coming out of NASA today, as they officially named the first crews assigned to fly on the Space-X Dragon and Boeing Starliner vehicles. This will be the first time the US has the capability to launch astronauts since the last Shuttle flight in 2011. No more buying seats from the Russians!

According to the article each system can carry up to four astronauts to the ISS, and pushes the number we can have onboard the ISS to seven at a time. The article doesn't mention the current limit but I believe it's only three, maybe four.

There are currently 6 crew onboard the ISS; three crewmembers in each of the two Soyuz vehicles. With a Space-X Dragon, Boeing Starliner, and a Soyuz all attached at the same time, there could be as many as 11 crew on ISS at once.

joefro wrote:There are currently 6 crew onboard the ISS; three crewmembers in each of the two Soyuz vehicles. With a Space-X Dragon, Boeing Starliner, and a Soyuz all attached at the same time, there could be as many as 11 crew on ISS at once.

I was referring to US crewmembers. Looks like there are only three onboard right now. Does this have to do with safety and possible evacuation?

The new spaceflight capability provided by Boeing and SpaceX will allow NASA to maintain a crew of seven astronauts on the space station, thereby maximizing scientific research that leads to breakthroughs and also aids in understanding and mitigating the challenges of long-duration spaceflight.

Nah, it's just due to longstanding crew rotation agreements with all of the international partners so that all partners are represented proportionally over time. There are currently three NASA astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts, and one German Euronaut.

Russia’s contract with NASA to carry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) will end in April 2019, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov told reporters on Friday. Under the current contract, American astronauts have had access to seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft in order to reach the ISS and return home according to RT.

The expiration will pile further pressure on NASA to restore its own capability to shuttle U.S. crew members back and forth to the orbiting lab.

Trust me, Russia is more than happy to keep taking our money as long as we want to keep paying them for Soyuz seats. That zerohedge article is BS, that Russian politician is just trying to project power, but they are going to miss the funds. We’ve had to rely on them, but never had to “beg” for seats. Definitely looking forward to launching on our own soil again!

MaryB wrote:The money we wasted in the Russians could have had SpaceX or Boeing flying our crews 2 years ago!

Here is a little history which is buried or forgotten (I retired from NASA, so i was aware from the inside)Trying to keep my political perspective out of this, here is what i experienced.

The decision to end the shuttle program and become reliant on the Russians was done during the Bush era, around 2008/2009. This decision lead to the last shuttle mission in 2011. During this time, we 'closed down the Shuttle program and got rid of the production capability of keeping flying astronauts from American soil. this was a conscience decision, and took several years to accomplish. thus the march to reliance on RUSSIA.

At this time, the Constellation program was ramping up. This meant that NASA had the ISS program in full operation, and no capability to fly astronauts into space. The constellation program was realigned early into the Obama Administration because Obama wanted his own fingerprints on the future, and NASA was overrunning program costs. This in turn became what is known as the Space Launch System (SLS), jokingly refered to as the Senate Launch System.

It was in 2006, the NASA administrator started a very crazy but brilliant experiment called COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation System) to fly cargo to the ISS. Investing 500 Million over several years into multiple entrepreneurial companies to get cheaper access into space was a drop in the bucket from a budget perspective. Does any one recollect that the first two companies to be awarded this money in 2006 was SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler. (not Orbital). NASA enabled this via Reembursable Space Act Agreements (RSAA's) where commercial companies proposed milestones and accomplishments to demonstrate how to fly cargo into space. Success and commercial access to space from US soil was born (SpaceX and Orbital were awarded the contracts to supply ISS). COTS was absolutely not popular with mainstream NASA, and was constantly bashed and laughed at. Flying anything into space was NASA's duty, and no commercial companies could ever be successful.

NASA had lost its role of 'inspiring the future by doing what no others could do. In talking to College and high school students, LEO does not inspire them. In addition, if we turned over LEO launches to commercial companies we would be able to bring costs down and increase access, thus improving the opportunity for new discoveries, technologies,and capabilities.

NASA needed to concentrate on loftier goals of going to MARS, space refueling, solar power, battery capabilities, etc. Politics and ego from certain NASA centers was the problem, and there were several years where additional funding to NASA was earmarked for SLS. Consider this, $300M allocated to SLS would do nothing to help get astronauts into space earlier due to the overruns, but that money invested into the Commercial Crew program to get astronauts into space from US soil with the many companies who were already in NASA RSAA's (EG boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada).

Fast forward to now. We still don't have Astronauts flying from US soil,SLS is still over budget SLS Launch date keeps slipping and their first few launches still down get astronauts into space if they stay on schedule.

Don't get me wrong, NASA does a great job for a Govt agency and needs to be in the middle, but their role and focus needs to continually evolve. I still love NASA.

MAGAfund commercial Space Launch providersStop sending funding to other countries Keep the money in AMERICA, and the free world

NASA's administrator Jim Bridenstine has directed the space agency to look at boosting its brand by selling naming rights to rockets and spacecraft and allowing its astronauts to appear in commercials and on cereal boxes, as if they were celebrity athletes.

NASA's administrator Jim Bridenstine has directed the space agency to look at boosting its brand by selling naming rights to rockets and spacecraft and allowing its astronauts to appear in commercials and on cereal boxes, as if they were celebrity athletes.

Jeff Bezos says he will invest $1 billion next year in Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket program

Jeff Bezos will invest “just over $1 billion” next year in Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket program, and the company will fly people to space “this coming year,” the Amazon.com Inc. chief executive said Wednesday.